The Times, They Are a Changin'
by EstelRaca
Summary: Combeferre and Courfeyrac reminisce about some of the changes they have seen over their lifetimes, and decide to participate in a little change of their own. Reincarnation fic, modern day, Combeferre/Courfeyrac


**Author's Note:** This was written for tsukinokage, for her birthday. The prompt was for Combeferre/Courfeyrac cuteness.

_The Times, They Are a Changin'_

"I miss the fashions from before."

Courfeyrac is nestled in against Combeferre's side, his head pillowed on Combeferre's shoulder.

"From before?" Combeferre opens his eyes, though he can't see much between the dark of night and his lack of glasses. "Which before?"

"France in the 1830s. Japan in the 1860s. Russia in the 1910s. Anywhere, I suppose… though mostly France, right now." Courfeyrac sighs, turning so he can bury his head against Combeferre's bare skin, his breath a warm, moist tickle.

"What do you miss about them?" Combeferre strokes his hand through Courfeyrac's hair, his voice gentle and quiet, falling easily into the cadence that these conversations always have.

It's been a while since they spoke like this—years, really, the last time that Combeferre can remember back when they were teenagers. He's not sure what triggered Courfeyrac's bout of nostalgia this time. There haven't been too many major changes recently. It doesn't have to be a major change, though, to send their minds reeling, decades and centuries worth of lives competing with each other to define normalcy. The fact that the Amis are usually the instigation for the changes that rock their world helps, sometimes, but not always.

"I miss the options. I miss the _beauty_." Courfeyrac lifts his head, resting his chin on Combeferre's chest. "Everything's so… bland, now. Rich or poor, most people wear jeans and t-shirts all the time, the only difference being what brand they're walking around as billboards for. Even formal dress just seems… calmer. Men wear tuxedos. Women wear dresses that are competing for a lack of fabric. There was an elegance to dress back then that's utterly lacking now."

"For some people there are more options now." Squeezing Courfeyrac's shoulder, Combeferre turns on his side so that they're facing each other.

"You're very cute when you squeeze your eyes like that." One of Courfeyrac's hands reaches up, strokes lightly between Combeferre's eyes. "I think I like it when you're near-sighted. It fits you."

"It's bound to happen to all of us at one point or another." Combeferre sticks his tongue out, licking Courfeyrac's finger and earning a distraught yelp from his friend as Courfeyrac pulls his hand back. "You just get to enjoy it this time around."

"And I am enjoying it." Courfeyrac wipes his hand off on the sheet, a flash of white teeth betraying his grin. As Combeferre's eyes adjust to the darkness, he can make out Courfeyrac's form, pale white skin against their dark blue sheets. "Thoroughly enjoying it. And I know that there's more options now, technically, and that things are better for many people. Women can wear what they like, for the most part, though the emphasis on sexuality in even children's clothing is disturbing. And I still long for the day when I can dress Enjolras as a woman and no one will bat an eye, and though it's closer it isn't here yet. Closer, always closer to our ideal, but never quite reaching it. Still, I… miss the fashions that we had. I miss skirts and petticoats and kimonos and gis and even corsets sometimes. I miss waistcoats and cravats and _hats_. No one wears proper hats anymore."

"They do at horse races."

Courfeyrac narrows his eyes. "Those aren't proper, they're monstrosities."

"And Jehan is trying very hard to bring back some of the old fashions. That outfit he made two weeks ago—"

"That was terrible! He didn't know if he wanted to be a Mediterranean or Caribbean or Bengalese or Ohkotski pirate, and adding the combat boots on top of the rest was just insult to injury." Courfeyrac sniffs. "Not to mention that the day was _talk_ like a pirate day, not _dress_ like a pirate day."

"You're just jealous that he thought of the cosplay idea before you." Combeferre strokes a hand down Courfeyrac's throat, his red-brown skin showing starkly against Courfeyrac's during this life.

So strange, to make so intimate a gesture, and know that he's done it before, will likely do it again, but that all of his memories of doing it don't match. To know that sometimes his hand has been light, Courfeyrac's skin dark; to know that sometimes he has been female, sometimes male, with Courfeyrac's gender changing just as often; to know that sometimes they have matched and sometimes they haven't, but always there has been love and trust here between them.

Courfeyrac glances to the side, a smile again pulling at his lips. "Perhaps it was a bit of jealousy. But just a bit."

Silence descends between them, a comfortable, friendly absence of sound.

It doesn't last for long, though, Courfeyrac squirming on his side of the bed, pulling the sheet off Combeferre's legs accidentally. "Are you missing anything?"

"Many things." Combeferre pulls the sheet back over himself, though the night isn't truly cold, just the faintest chill in the air. "Right now… I miss the wonder that there used to be in the scientific community. Back in France, or during the fifties and sixties… we believed we could discover anything, understand anything, and the public was eager for any knowledge that we gleaned. Science was something that the layman could and should do. Everyone watched mankind reach for the stars, and everyone thought it was right. Now… there's so much friction between scientists and the laity. So much mistrust of doctors. So much mistrust of any experts. So much… disappointment in the universe and its secrets. There aren't men on Mars, and the moon isn't made of cheese, so why waste money on exploration when it could be spent on yet another partisan showdown that will help no one?"

"It's not often that I hear you so bitter, love." Courfeyrac's arms wrap around him, pull him close, and Courfeyrac's lips press against his throat. "What happened?"

"Nothing important." Combeferre leans his forehead against Courfeyrac's shoulder, accepting the comfort. "There was another book published on the science of science—on how individual egos and beliefs shape scientific progress and research. I was quoted in it."

"That's—"

"As the young, naïve scientist who is going to have his dreams crushed when he realizes exactly how corrupt and divisive and influenced by human ego the profession is." Combeferre sighs. "There's just so much… _wrong_ with that. I understand that science isn't a pure thing. I've been living that for longer than the author's been _alive_. But that doesn't mean we can't strive to make it better, that holding to the ideals is somehow foolish or that aspiring to create great things makes one instantly a narcissistic asshole."

"No, it doesn't." Courfeyrac sighs, as well. "Perhaps what we're really missing is idealism. It seems to be very out of fashion right now."

"It was never terribly in fashion." Raising his head, Combeferre smiles for Courfeyrac, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "But so long as there are idealists—so long as we exist—then the future can't really be so bleak."

"No bleakness in our futures, no." Courfeyrac takes his hand in a fierce, firm grip. "And there are a great many things I love about our current time. The Internet is absolutely amazing. Mass communication, the ability to find and mobilize and energize and connect with people all over the world… it's perhaps the best invention I've ever seen, and I can't think of anything that's going to be quite as… powerful and impacting as it's been."

"That's because if we could imagine it, we'd already be creating it." The smile grows on Combeferre's face as he takes in Courfeyrac's cheer. "Medicine's improved a great deal, as well. I might argue that vaccination and germ theory have had more of an impact on human society than the Internet. We can prevent viral pandemics. We can eliminate diseases—we _killed _smallpox. We eradicated a disease that's been around for ages! Humanity did. We know where disease comes from. We've made so many improvements in surgery—anesthesia. Anesthesia is one of the greatest things ever—"

"I would agree with that." Courfeyrac laughs. "So would Enjolras and Feuilly. Bahorel should, as well, but he might be too stoic to admit it. And Jehan might just be crazy enough to miss the days before anesthesia."

"And _suture_! We have hemoclips and dissolvable suture and surgical staples and so many _options_ now, developing more every day. Laser surgery! We can do laser surgery on people's eyes!" He's grinning like an idiot, but Combeferre can't help it, sitting up in bed as memories of attempting to heal in previous incarnations collide with the astronomical strides that medicine has taken in the last decades. "Humanity is amazing, Courfeyrac."

"We are." Courfeyrac grins up at him, stretched languidly across the bed, one arm over his head. His red-brown hair is black in the dark. "We can send people to the moon and heal the sick and love one another. As much as I miss some things, sometimes, I think I love every life just a little bit more."

"I _know_ I love every life." Settling down again by Courfeyrac, trying not to feel embarrassed about his outburst, Combeferre closes his eyes. "It's always so different, but it's always so… beautiful. So _important_. And all these times since France… all these times that we've found each other again… they're just… just…"

"Beautiful." Courfeyrac gathers Combeferre's body against his, raining a gentle line of kisses along Combeferre's neck and shoulder. "Absolutely spectacular. Fascinating. Frightening. Wondrous. Terrible. _Right_."

"Right." Opening his eyes, Combeferre presses a kiss to Courfeyrac's forehead. "Having all of us together, life after life, working for the betterment of humanity… that is absolutely, fantastically _right_."

Courfeyrac's body tenses, just a slight shift against Combeferre, a taut energy in his muscles.

All that he says, though, is, "I miss the dancing."

Courfeyrac settles himself more comfortably against Combeferre's side, his head on Combeferre's shoulder, Combeferre's arm wrapping around him so that Combeferre's hand rests on Courfeyrac's side, pulling them close.

It's not what Combeferre was expecting him to say, not after the tension that ran through him, but if he needs to speak more about the past, Combeferre's happy to do so.

"You seem to do a lot of dancing during this life." Combeferre brushes his lips against his lover's forehead, his words quiet, his eyes straining to make out Courfeyrac's shape more clearly in the darkness.

"I certainly do a lot of dancing. And I like the dancing that's done now." Courfeyrac's hand slides from Combeferre's navel up his bare chest, a gentle caress. "There's something to be said for the way that dances can spread so quickly now, the cross-cultural pollination that can occur, and I will never say no to people looking fantastic and provocative. But back when this first started for us…"

"It was different." Combeferre presses his lips against Courfeyrac's brow.

"It was much more a part of our society." Courfeyrac levers himself up on his elbows, straddling Combeferre. "Everyone danced. I could drag Enjolras out dancing and he couldn't protest because it was something that he needed to know how to do."

A smile pulls at Combeferre's lips as he gazes up at Courfeyrac's silhouette. "You drag him out with you now."

"I do, on occasion, because he needs to understand the cultures that we're addressing, but it's _different_. I feel… awkward, asking him to dance at most clubs, because the dancing is very sexual, and Enjolras… is Enjolras."

"There was a sexual component to it back in our time." Combeferre's right hand slides down Courfeyrac's side, his fingers teasing into the joint of hip and body, earning a yelp and a flail that sends Courfeyrac crashing back down onto the bed.

"There was, one that I must say I thoroughly enjoyed, and there isn't always a sexual component to it now, but…" Courfeyrac sighs, snuggling down now on Combeferre's left side. "I miss dancing like it used to be. I wish we could have both, the current fashions and the past."

Combeferre considers the statement. "We can always go ballroom dancing, if you want."

"We could. I've considered it." Courfeyrac's smile is something Combeferre can feel, a rounding of Courfeyrac's cheeks, a press of heat against Combeferre's shoulder. "But it still won't be the same. They take dance fashions from all over Europe and from multiple times and throw them together, usually. What I want… what I want is for you to dance with me, right here, right now."

Quick as lightning Courfeyrac is off the bed, standing, bright grin back in place, holding one hand out to Combeferre.

"Dance. Here. Now." Combeferre sits up slowly, shoving a hand through his hair to push it back from his face. "At midnight. In the dark. With no music."

"I can provide the music. And sometime in the last century there was this marvelous invention known colloquially as indoor lighting." Courfeyrac uses the hand he isn't holding out to Combeferre to turn on the bedside light, casting a low, yellow glow over the entire room. "It's really quite miraculous. So come, dance with me."

Combeferre looks down Courfeyrac's long, lithe, beautiful, nude body, knowing that his own is similarly lacking in attire. "Naked."

"Oh yes." The gleam in Courfeyrac's eyes brings a flush to Combeferre's cheeks.

He's not going to give in that easily, though, not when he can string Courfeyrac along a bit more. "When there are books and clothes all over the floor because we got distracted before we got to the cleaning part of last night."

"I promise to lead you through clear patches." Courfeyrac kicks his pants under the bed. "Or allow you to lead me, whichever you prefer. So won't you dance with me?"

It's a tone of voice that Combeferre rarely ever refuses, and Combeferre doesn't really want to right now. Standing, Combeferre bows low to Courfeyrac. Taking Courfeyrac's right hand with his left, Combeferre wraps his right hand around Courfeyrac's waist, pulling their bodies close together.

"Well." It's Courfeyrac's turn to blush, the red standing out beautifully on his pale skin in the wan light. "I must say you seem rather forward, monsieur."

"It is the hour and the company, I fear." Combeferre allows his voice to fall to its lowest register, a low purr as he leans his forehead against Courfeyrac's. "Both have a tendency to make me rather more daring than I would normally be."

"I think people underestimate your daring during periods of so-called normalcy." Courfeyrac's mouth finds his, claims it, and breaks away, the touch too brief and chaste to truly satisfy. Courfeyrac knows it, too, the fae grin that flits across his face betraying any hints of innocence that he might try to feign. "Shall we dance, my love?"

They dance, a slow, beautiful waltz to Courfeyrac's not-quite-on-tempo humming. Courfeyrac's skin is warm against his, a sharp counterpoint to the almost-chill night air, and there is something both beautifully nostalgic and breathtakingly unique about waltzing naked in their bedroom with this man he has known for so many lifetimes.

The song trails off too soon, Courfeyrac pulling away to stand at arm's length, their hands still clasped together. "Combeferre."

Just that, just his name—his first name, the one he always goes by with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, the other Amis, though it wasn't the name given him in this life—but that same strange tension is back in Courfeyrac's body. This time Combeferre isn't just going to let it go. "What is it, my friend? You know you can tell me anything."

"I know. And that's why this is so frightening. I don't want…" Courfeyrac laughs, a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. "Then again, I've never really been one to be on _bad_ terms with my exes, so…"

Combeferre frowns, a ball of ice forming in his gut. Exes? Has something happened in their relationship that he's woefully unaware of? He thought everything was going rather well. What—

"And that was a very foolish thing for me to say. I'm not planning on leaving or anything. I'm just being silly. So, I'm going to stop being an idiot and get this over with, because I'm never going to find the perfect time and this is as good as any other." Courfeyrac releases Combeferre's hands and dives to the floor next to the bed, pulling his pants and jacket out from under it. He's on his feet again before Combeferre can ask him what he's doing, moving back to stand in front of Combeferre.

Courfeyrac doesn't hesitate before dropping into a deep bow of his own. When he rises, his face is grave, his hands held clasped behind his back. "Monsieur Combeferre, it has been my deepest pleasure to share this dance with you tonight. It has been a great and wondrous delight sharing a bedroom with you these last months—who knew that lifetimes' worth of experience could make things so exciting? It has been my deepest joy to watch the world change with you throughout our various lifetimes. And if you would share one of these newest changes with me, I would be honored beyond words."

Courfeyrac pulls his hands from behind his back, holding them out to Combeferre, revealing a small gold band clenched tight between two fingers.

"Are you—" Combeferre stops as his voice squeaks. "Are you asking me to _marry you_?"

"Can I say that it depends on if you're going to say yes or not?" Courfeyrac's grin appears and disappears between breaths. "Yes. That's exactly what I'm asking."

"Oh. Wow." Combeferre stares at the band, at the thin etchings he can see around the edge but can't read.

"Wow isn't really an answer." Again that flash of smile, driving away anxiety. "Though it is flattering."

He should probably say he needs time to think about it. He should probably go over their finances and their futures and try to decide what's going to be best. Probably, but… "Yes. Happily."

He's not sure he actually sees Courfeyrac move. He just suddenly has Courfeyrac's arms wrapped around his neck, Courfeyrac's mouth pressed against his, and he doesn't hesitate to embrace Courfeyrac in return.

"It's going to be interesting." Courfeyrac's words come faster and faster, his body vibrating with barely-controlled energy. "And probably hard at times, because I'm me, and you know all of my problems and all of my foibles, but we've been together for so long now, I mean, not always _together_ but fighting oppression across countries and lives has to count for something and—"

"It will be a lovely experiment, and no matter what happens with it, we're going to be friends." Combeferre pulls Courfeyrac close to him again, running his hand through Courfeyrac's shoulder-length locks. "We've been through how many revolutions together? I think we can handle a marriage."

"Yes, well, you, me, and Enjolras have had some fun condemning and dismantling the foundations of the institution of marriage—how much it's founded in patriarchal norms, how much it emphasizes a nuclear family model that leaves no room for many other cultures, including a lot of queer cultures, and heaven help anyone who identifies as polyamorous and wants all their relationships recognized. But…" Courfeyrac shrugs. "We've been having a lot of fun doing this, and it's available, and I thought…"

"I like the idea. I wouldn't agree to it otherwise." Combeferre hugs his _fiancé_ tight to him. "Our marriage will be whatever we wish it to be."

"I know." Courfeyrac laughs, a bright, pleased sound. "And this means that I'm going to beat Enjolras down the aisle, at least, because _that_ would have just been wrong."

Combeferre frowns. "What?"

"You haven't heard?" There's a sly, teasing edge to Courfeyrac's smile now. "Well, I wouldn't want to spoil anything for you."

"Courfeyrac—"

"Nope." Courfeyrac spins him around and wrestles him down onto the bed. "This night is about you and me and all the futures that we're going to see and all the pasts that we're going to keep on remembering and loving."

"Spoken like a poet." Combeferre reaches up, running a hand along Courfeyrac's jaw.

"Spoken like a lover." Courfeyrac kisses his hand. "A very happy, very content lover. Because no matter what else I miss, I know that I'm never going to have to miss the most amazing, wonderful, fantastic people that anyone could ever wish to know."

Combeferre swallows. "Agreed. Very, very agreed."

They don't speak much for the rest of the night. When they do, it's short, simple sentences, phrases, quotes, snippets of memories, bits of the past that have helped shape who they are now.

Mostly, though, they hold each other, because no matter how different they look, no matter how changed the world, the feel of their fingers locked together will never change, and that's really all they need to keep going.


End file.
